Ukraine's and Russia's Heads of Foreign Ministries held a meeting

On May 19, 2006 Borys Tarasyuk, Minister for Foreign Affairs of Ukraine met with Sergey Lavrov, Russia’s Minister for Foreign Affairs in the framework of the 116th session of the Council of Europe Committee of Ministers.

B.Tarasyuk congratulated S.Lavrov with the beginning of chairmanship in the CE Committee of Ministers, MFA press release reports.

Special attention of the interlocutors was paid to the proper preparation and practical filling up of Russian President V.Putin’s visit to Ukraine. The heads of foreign ministries agreed that this visit should confirm further positive development of relations between our countries.

In the course of the meeting the sides discussed the preparation for the first session of the International Cooperation Subcommittee and the first session of the Economic Cooperation Committee in the framework of the Ukrainian-Russian Intergovernmental Commission.

“Ukraine is ready for further acceleration of Ukrainian-Russian cooperation in all current issues of bilateral cooperation, in particular in the sphere of foreign policy, European and Euro-Atlantic integration of Ukraine”, - Borys Tarasyuk underlined.

While discussing the issues of further development of the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) the sides attached special attention to implementation of the initiative, raised by President of Ukraine Victor Yushchenko in the course of the CIS in Kazan’ in August 2005.

Special attention was attached to the issues of humanitarian cooperation, in particular to the official inauguration on May 24, 2006 in Russia of the first state cultural institution, intended to contribute to the popularization of Ukrainian language, - the library of Ukrainian literature in Moscow.